In the news this week - 12/5/26

Well our National news has been dominated by the results of the local elections last week and whether the Prime Minister Sir Kier Starmer will resign. 

Locally, our council which has been Labour run for a long time is now controlled by the Green Party.  Our own ward still has 2 Conservative councillors and there are still some Labour councillors but the Greens have the majority.  Even in our former area, Newham, there were massive changes with Labour still having the most seats but with no overall control, although they did elect a Labour Mayor.

The number of Reform candidates that managed to secure wins is slightly alarming.  But already there have been cases of candidates resigning or being expelled from the party.  One candidate had even resigned before the election took place but was still on the ballot paper and was elected!  I wasn't sure what happened in those circumstances so of course I googled it to find that a by-election will be held "if requested by local registered electors".

There has also been a story today about the leader of the Green Party, Zack Polanski who may not have paid the council tax due on the houseboat he was living on.  There seems to be a lot of people who will call themselves something else but basically they're just dirt diggers.

The International News has focussed on the outbreak of hantavirus on the cruise ship MV Hondius.  It seems that passengers have disembarked and travelled on to various locations during its travels and this must be making it difficult to trace all those who may have come into contact with the virus.  The long incubation period (up to 6 weeks in some cases) means monitoring will be going on for a while.  Hopefully there will be no further deaths.

In Sports the two big London clubs, West Ham and Spurs continue to try and hang on to a place in the Football Premier League.  West Ham will be bemoaning a VAR (Video Assistant Referee) decision that cost them a late equalizing goal and denied them a point in their match against Arsenal at the weekend.  The decision to disallow their goal took 4 minutes.  It looks like who goes down will not be decided until the last game of the season on 24th May.  The winners of the Premiership title might not be decided until then either although Arsenal look more likely than Manchester City.  All the teams play their final games on that Sunday with the same kick off time of 4 pm.  There will be a lot of nail biting going on.  And probably some shouting at the TV.

Entertainment news continues to give us hints as to who the new presenters of Strictly Come Dancing will be but no actual information has been forthcoming from the BBC.  I wish they would just get on with it!

At least we know who the next celebrities taking part in Traitors will be.  Another good line up. (See here for more info.) Can't wait.

And finally under Miscellaneous, the Japanese snack giant Calbee has switched its packaging to black and white due to problems with ink supplies due to the Iran war.  Somehow they don't look as appetising!  See more including pictures here.